Beyond the fact that the controversy surrounding the cover - featuring the group's long-standing mascot being hanged by a makeshift gallows - was unfair, the group's fans being denied access to this album only compounded the injustice. Because musically and lyrically, it was a truly amazing record, full of youthful creativity, tinged with the stress of growing up as black men in urban America. Unlike on the group's 1991 debut, Mr. Hood, Subroc had fully come into his own as both a producer and an MC on Black Bastards, and his untimely death made the album's shelving that much more tragic.